Child Soldier
by Seldavia
Summary: Human children are remarkably adaptable creatures. Adults rarely realize how well they handle adversity. A narrative of Samus growing up.
1. Chapter 1

The Greater Sun rose, the Lesser sun eclipsed as it sank down below the horizon. The light filtered through tinted glass, made of a mineral indigenous to Zebes. The light illuminated a once-regal building that had clearly seen better days, its facades crumbling and plants growing in between the cracks. Yet it still held strong and stable, giving vital shelter from the planet's harsh solar storms.

As the light touched the folds of a thin blanket, laid over a mattress made of woven plant fibers, a small girl squinted against the sun. She rolled over, once, twice, then slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes.

The room was quite bare, save for the girl and the bed. There were no toys, no personal items. She had collected a few pretty shells and other odds and ends to decorate her room, but ever since a poisonous spiny-shell snail had pricked her finger, she'd stopped. She'd had to spend so much time in the room recovering from the poison, all she could do was stare at the bits of shell until she hated the sight of them. She learned quickly that the most beautiful things were often the most deadly.

Carefully she lowered herself down out of the bed, designed for someone much bigger than she. Trotting quickly to the other room, she used the toilet and turned the faucet that ran water into her makeshift bath. The pleasant splash of cold water competed with the cries of the morning birds and other fliers that hunted in in the morning outside.

After a brief wash, she carefully dressed in clothing that bore the same style she had worn for years, for no one in her home knew how to make anything different. They did not wear her kind of clothing. They also had no hair to brush, but had given her a little comb that she pulled through a shock of short blonde hair. None of them shared this morning ritual, which she had been instructed to follow out of habit, for the time when she was to return to her own people.

Her living quarters had been designed for one person, but for an adult, not a child. She did not dwell on this disparity. Dragging a small stool to one of the cabinets, she took out the food that her guardians kept for her. There were two melon-like fruits, a small cup of grain, and a tiny roasted lizard-like creature. She smiled upon finding that last item; Bamy must have left it for her. Although she got all the food a young girl needed, the fact that her guardians rarely ate meat meant that she hardly ever got any, either.

In a drawer she found a knife as long as one arm. Holding the melon carefully with one hand, she brought down the knife with the other in a startling show of strength for someone her size. The melon split clean in half. She sliced both melons and then brought the food to the worn stone table. She ate alone, her legs swinging from the high chairs. Once she finished her meal, she cleaned up and opened the door to the outside.

For Zebes, it was a pleasant day. There were no storms, the wasp swarms had abated, and while the sun was hot it did not burn has fiercely as it usually did. The small girl trotted down a worn stone pathway that led past other crumbling buildings. Already their inhabitants were awake, giant shapes moving slowly about, some of them greeting her as she ran by.

It never occurred to her to do anything else but go to Minah's study. There were no other little girls to play with. There was no place to go that was not dangerous. Every morning she went to Minah's, and Minah would ensure that nothing bad had happened as a result of the Long Sleep, now over a year ago.

As she entered, Minah smiled as well as someone with a beak can. "Good morning, Samus."

"Good morning, Minah." The little girl climbed up onto the chair that Minah always provided for her.

Minah's hands were gnarled and old - all the Chozo were old - but she still had a delicate and exact touch. She picked up a small metal scope. "How are you feeling today?"

"Okay."

"No nightmares last night?"

Samus shook her head.

"Well, that's good to hear. Any trouble sleeping?"

The little girl fidgeted in the chair as Minah checked her ears, her nose, her eyes, her mouth. "The scissor flies were singing last night."

"Yes, I heard them. A frightfully loud noise they make. But you got to sleep, didn't you?"

"Uh huh."

"All right. Here, Samus, take this and see if you can bend it for me." Minah handed her a small metal bar with markings on one side. The little girl grabbed it eagerly; she liked this part of the tests. Seizing it in both hands, with several grunts and puffs she bent it into a U shape until her face turned beet red. She held it up in triumph. "Look, Minah! Look how far I got this time!"

"Very good," Minah said with a smile. Taking the bar back she said, "That's all for today. You can go see Old Bird now."

Samus left Minah's study and made her way through the city, an ancient structure battered by time. Machinery from an age ago sat rusting; the Chozo had long since abandoned most of it for simpler means of living. Several of the dwellings were empty and shuttered, vegetation claiming some of them. Here and there the Chozo stood in twos and threes, passing the time with each other's company. They did not have much time left, but they saw no need to rush.

Besides, they were still needed, if only for a short time.

Old Bird stood waiting for her at the training grounds. His real name was Armenius; but ever since Samus had called him "the old bird" in an attempt to distinguish him from the rest of the old birds, the nickname had stuck. "Hello, Samus. Ready to start?"

"Uh huh." She kicked absently at a small rock as he fastened something to one arm. A laser blaster, weighing at least thirty pounds, but she lifted it easily.

"All right. We'll start with stationary targets first. Fire when ready."

She aimed with one arm at the series of targets several hundred meters off and just a few inches wide. The laser hit its mark with frightening accuracy. The little girl turned and smiled at her instructor, taking pride in having become so good at the game.

He nodded in acknowledgement. "Very good, Samus. We'll go right on to moving targets then." He turned a switch and the targets moved slowly back and forth across the field.

Samus scrambled back and forth, a few misses interspersed with the hits. Regardless, Old Bird noticed that her movements had become much more deliberate, much more graceful, much more powerful. In no time at all she had taken down the rest of the targets as well. Before he could speak, she demanded, "Old Bird, when are we going to use the targets that shoot back?"

He smiled gently. "I don't think you're quite ready for that."

"Please?" She showed just the smallest trace of an ordinary child's impatience. "We've been doing these for weeks!"

"Oh…" He pondered for a while. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try…"

"Watch, Old Bird," she ordered, as if he wouldn't. "Watch me." She weaved back and forth, firing at the targets as they hurled hollow, ceramic balls at her. Samus fired at both with a determined, excited expression on her face. Old Bird watched with considerable surprise. At this rate, there was no telling how far she could…

"Ow, ow!" Samus's head jerked back as one of the ceramic balls hit her square in the eye. Old Bird hurriedly turned off the machine and ran over to pick her up from the ground. "I'm all right," she grumbled, trying to push him away.

"You don't look all right," he said as he gently examined her face. A black eye bloomed darkly. "I think we'll end training for today and focus on history instead."

"But Old Bird…" Samus did not much care for Chozo history, though she tried to hide it. She gave no indication of knowing that the ball would have crushed her skull before she had gone through the Long Sleep.

"No more training, Samus. You can push your body to its limits, but no further," he said sternly. "Part of being a warrior is knowing when to rest."

"Fine," she grumbled.

"All right. We can continue this tomorrow. I'm sure you'll have healed up by then."

A/N: Old Bird's name is the only thing that will follow the canon set in the manga.


	2. Chapter 2

Samus arrived at Minah's study later than usual, digging one fist into the sleepy eye that had not been damaged by the ceramic ball. "Good morning, Samus," Minah greeted her. "Did you not sleep well?"

"I had a nightmare," she said drowsily, climbing up into the chair as if it comforted her.

"Oh?" Minah examined the bruised eye, noting that the girl's white blood cells had already eaten away at quite a bit of the black-and-blue coloring. "Which nightmare was that?"

The girl yawned, but squirmed restlessly. "The one with the dragon."

"I see. Did you try what I told you?"

"I can't, yet. I don't know I'm dreaming till I wake up." She made a motion with her hand as if aiming the blaster she used for training. "Maybe next time I'll blow him up."

Minah examined the pupil of Samus's injured eye. "You know the dragon won't come here, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And why is that?"

"Because there's nothing here it wants," she replied automatically, as she had many times before.

"Very good."

Samus wriggled out of the chair. "Minah, can I go see Old Bird now?"

Minah frowned. "I don't know, your eye is healing quickly, but if you were to get another injury…"

Samus stared up at her, eyes pleading. "Pleeeaase, Minah?"

Minah shook her head. "I don't think it's a good idea. It should be all right by tomorrow, though." When the little girl's face fell, Minah said, "Oh, I nearly forgot…Bamy said the lab would be open today. Why don't you go pay him a visit?"

Samus immediately brightened. "It is? Okay! See you later, Minah."

She trotted out the door and down the pathway, dodging into the shadows as the powerful sun beat down with great force. The more delicate plants had folded up to preserve water, the smaller insects and reptiles hid in their holes under the earth. The Chozo themselves mostly stayed indoors.

She stopped at the foot of a very large, very thick-walled building that had faded metal interspersed with the diamond-hard rock foundation. The door, nearly thick as she was tall, stood open. Samus paid little attention to the notes posted on the walls, heading for a particular room with a particular person within it.

Bamy, a male Chozo, stood in front of a lab table with a list of measurements in his hands. His eyes, which had not dulled over yet from complacency like the rest of the Chozo, brightened further when he saw the small girl enter. "Hello, Samus! You got here pretty quickly - did you hear me open the main door?"

"Minah told me." She scrambled up onto one of the chairs. "Did you find anything new, Bamy?"

Bamy lifted her up and set her down near a set of cages along one wall, keeping his hand on her shoulder so she would not move too close. "This one's a chameleon of some kind…hasn't changed color since I brought it in, though. I think its new environment has shocked it a bit."

Samus peered into the glass cage at the lizard-like creature with a long tail, horned head, and brilliant colors zigzagging up and down its body. "It's pretty."

"It is, isn't it? Not safe to touch, though…venomous teeth in the back of its mouth."

Samus didn't shy away. Most of the animals on Zebes had one trait or another that made it perilous to ordinary humans. She, like the Chozo, had learned how to live around them without provoking them. In fact, she felt immediately drawn to the most dangerous specimens, the thicker, shaded cages offering tantalizing promises of the wonders locked inside.

"What's this one?" she asked, pointing to a floating, jellyfish-like blob.

Bamy frowned. "That's an invader from one of the local planets. It shouldn't be here, and I can't figure out how it got off its home planet. It's not supposed to be able to survive here."

"Have you seen it before?"

"Yes, I'm quite familiar with it." He took Samus's hand. "Come on, there's lots of other things to look at that aren't dangerous. Here, I found some leaper chicks. Do you want to hold one?"

Samus eagerly held out her hands. Bamy placed one of the chicks, a small, fuzzy creature, into the palm of her hand. She giggled. "It's soft!"

Bamy smiled. "Here, do you want to feed it? They hatch all ready to go…here's some nakka seeds, it should take them right out of your hands."

Samus gingerly handed the creature the seeds, and it took them one by one, its beady eyes blinking at her as it snuffled into her palm. In the background they heard a loud banging as one of the creatures apparently did not like being confined. Bamy stepped over to the reinforced cages to investigate, when suddenly the sound of shattering glass rent the air, accompanied by a shrill shriek.

Before she could even react, Samus felt herself being yanked off the floor by Bamy and thrown into a small, windowless chamber not much bigger than she was. Panicked, she banged on the door with her small fists. "Bamy, Bamy! Let me out, Bamy!"

Despite the thick walls of the chamber, she could hear yelling, animal shrieks, and the sound of glass and furniture breaking. She beat her hands against the door, hitting harder and harder as her panic grew. Soon she started to throw her whole body against the walls, as if sheer force of will could be enough to escape. Her voice went hoarse as she yelled Bamy's name.

Finally, with no way of knowing how much time had passed, the door opened. Samus rushed out and stopped dead as she came face to face with some gigantic metallic creature. The creature quickly pulled at the top of its head; the outer shell came off and Bamy's head appeared. "Sorry, Samus. Didn't mean to scare you."

"Bamy!" she reached for him and he picked her up. Suddenly she realized there were several other Chozo in the room, Old Bird and Minah included. Minah gently took one of Samus's hands in hers, turning the girl's wrist slightly so they could see the redness and bruising there.

"Bamy, look what you've done," she said with a gentle reprimand. "Of course she's going to panic if something like this happens with no explanation."

He shot her an irritated look. "What was I supposed to do, keep her out here while I fought that thing?"

"You shouldn't let Samus in here," Old Bird scolded. "She's not strong enough yet to deal with the creatures you keep in this place."

"I'm fine now," Samus insisted, more interested in the metal armor Bamy was wearing. "What's this?"

He smiled. "Just some old safety equipment I had lying around."

"It looks good on you!"

With a laugh, he replied, "Why, thank you!"

"Bamy, why do you insist on keeping these things?" Old Bird demanded. "We've no use for this kind of research now. All that was needed is over and done. There's no point to attempting to bring back the glory days of our civilization."

Bamy scowled at him. "Listen, Armenius, just because the rest of you are happy with slowly fading out of existence, doesn't mean I'm just going to sit around and rot until it's my turn."

"You're supposed to be helping us with Samus, not getting her killed!" Minah snapped.

He scowled at her. "If you really want Samus to be safe, you should send her back to the humans. I thought you wanted more for her than that."

"And just how does this contribute to her upbringing?" Old Bird demanded.

"She has to learn how to deal with the creatures of other worlds at some point," Bamy replied.

"Best when she is still young, before she lets fear take root in her heart."

"Oh? What about the bruising on her hands?" Old Bird snapped. "Do you think she would have reacted that way if she knew you were keeping her safe?"

"Why bother giving her fighting training at all if you expect her to shy away from everything?" Bamy countered.

"I want to get down," Samus said, trying to wriggle out of Bamy's arms. The other three stopped talking and watched as Bamy set her on the floor. She glanced up at Old Bird. "Don't be mad at Bamy. I didn't know he had a suit of armor."

Old Bird sighed. "Well, it's not Bamy I was angry with, Samus. Bamy knows how to use that armor. I was more worried about you."

"I'm okay now." She glanced up at Bamy. "Can I have an armor suit, too?"

Bamy smiled. "Sorry, they only come in one size."

"I suppose if she had the proper equipment, this wouldn't be an issue," said Minah. "But she's not ready for that sort of thing yet. We're still monitoring the effects of the Long Sleep."

"How about this," Bamy suggested. "We'll keep her studies to the more harmless creatures for now. The others I'll store in a separate room."

"A fair compromise, I suppose," Old Bird agreed. "All right. But we're taking Samus now, and she's not allowed back in here until you finish the modifications."

Bamy agreed. "Come along," Minah said as she took Samus's hand. "You can visit with Bamy when he's finished."

Samus nodded, and let Minah lead her out. On the way she stretched out her hand to pick up what she thought was the flyer chick she had been holding earlier.

But it couldn't have been, she thought to herself, for when she touched it, it crumbled into dust.


	3. Chapter 3

Samus tried her hardest not to nod off as Old Bird led her through the names and orbits of the planets surrounding the Greater Sun. He used an ancient, giant contraption, which moved huge metal balls about on creaky gears, massive spheres that had once been elegantly painted to resemble the neighboring worlds. The machine had seen better days, and Old Bird matched each one to the star map on the ceiling that glowed to life with a tired light when he made the room dark.

When she had first entered the planetarium, Samus had been completely absorbed in the machine and seemingly magic ceiling; but after many days of memorizing orbit, atmosphere, and native life forms, it had become little more than a chore.

"What is the official name for the Greater Sun?" Old Bird asked. "What other planets are in its orbit?"

"FS-176," Samus replied, eyes already glazed over with boredom. "Twin Tabula, Oormine II, Bilium, and Tallon IV". She yawned. "Old Bird, when am I going to be able to visit any of these planets?"

He gave her a scolding look. "Samus, you know that none of these are habitable."

"Neither is Zebes. Not by humans, anyway. Besides, didn't you tell me there was a Chozo settlement on Tallon IV?"

"Yes, and I told you that something they found there caused them to leave. If the Chozo can't go there, you know that you can't."

Samus tried not to sulk, but the earlier conversation among the adults had irritated her. "Well, you're just going to give me back to the humans anyway, so what does any of this matter?"

Old Bird stopped the machine, its grinding racket slowly dying down to silence. "Samus…you know you cannot stay with us forever. Even other humans eventually grow up and leave their caretakers."

"I don't want other humans."

"You will, when you get to know them better. And they will want you."

"Because I can fight?"

Old Bird crouched down next to her, as well as he could, and put one hand on her shoulder. "Little one, you will see. I can only ask you to trust me now, but once you're of the legal Federation age, and you've enrolled in the Academy, you will find many other people like you. Some human, some not. Some who can fight, some who cannot. Some who have also had parts of their lives stolen by the Space Pirates."

Samus picked at an errant string on her clothing. "I want to stay here with you. And Bamy, and Minah."

Old Bird put an arm around her and she buried her head in his chest, clinging to her clothing. He cast his mind about for something to help, something to bring her out of this state.

Abruptly he stood, lifting her into his arms. "I have an idea. There's something I want to show you."

She struggled to extricate herself from his arms. "I can walk," she said stubbornly.

"I know you can. But it's better if I carry you for a little while longer. We're going to the West Side of the colony."

"We are?" Samus's eyes lit up. The West Side was forbidden to her without an escort. Of course, as was the nature of such things, all the most interesting (and therefore most dangerous) flora and fauna was on the West Side.

She sat happily perched on his shoulder as he made his way to the other side, unlocking the enormous metal gate that stood at the end, held shut by metal bars as thick as her arm. He locked it again behind them, then walked up the path to a little patio sitting above the dilapidated buildings.

The patio had numerous grasses and sickly-smelling flowers poking up between the flat stones. Insects buzzed overhead, and despite its low position in the sky, the Greater Sun still fiercely heated both the air and ground. A bloodsucker fly hovered nearby, tasting their breath. Samus swatted at it.

"Careful," Old Bird said, gently pushing her hand away. He stepped toward an evening flytrap, its maw already open in the early twilight. The bloodsucker followed, and the flytrap snatched it out of the air. "Never harm anything that is not a direct threat to you. But if it is, do not hesitate." He pointed out over the horizon. "Now, sit and watch."

The Greater Sun slowly sank behind the horizon, its reddish rays giving the Lesser sun a pinkish cast as it rose. Shades of red, blue, and purple swam through the sky. "Oh, Old Bird! It's beautiful!"

He smiled. "Can't see the sunset as well from the East Side, can you? Well, the best part's just beginning. Look out over the grass."

She did, and to her surprise the brownish-yellow, dead-looking grass sprouted thousands of tiny white flowers, translucent in the half-light. A fine mist rose from the petals, and Samus realized it was pollen.

She gripped Old Bird's shoulder. "Oh, oh, that's Sleeping Nightshade, isn't it? Is it safe here?"

He nodded. "Yes, at this time of night we have the wind at our back. But in an hour or so that will change, and the poison pollen will be blown back toward us." He looked up at her. "There are many things about this world that you do not know, and you must learn them all before you move on to other worlds."

"I understand," she said reluctantly, staring out over the carpet of blooms.

"Very good. Now, it is time for you to sleep, and tomorrow morning you should be healed up enough to start weapons training again."

Samus cheered, taking one quick look over her shoulder at the deepening twilight as Old Bird walked back down the path.

* * *

There was a Flying Salamander in her room.

Flying Salamanders were slimy little creatures that sought out water wherever they could. During the drought months, they would invade the Chozo dwellings in their search for it. Flying Salamanders had clawed wings that better suited a bat, but used them as skillfully as any dragonfly. Set against their black bodies were bright splotches of red, yellow, and orange, advertising to all that they carried within them a deadly poison. Not only carried, but used as well, with tiny fangs next to the rest of their needle-sharp teeth. The creatures could fit in the palm of an adult human's hand, but the toxin within them made them deadly to both humans and Chozo alike. The Chozo knew how to handle them, would place them outside the colony gates to let nature take its course. But Samus had been instructed to kill any she saw, for her own safety.

Samus did this, and more. When she found the little creature scurrying around on the floor of her sleeping area, she quickly ran to the kitchen. Filling a chipped bowl with water, she set it on the table as she gathered up other things; some of the shells and rocks she had collected, a few utensils, a broken doorknob.

She laid them all out on the floor around the bowl, arranging them carefully. The bigger objects were buildings, the smaller ones were people. She set up her game pieces with as much precision as a chess master, then grabbed a few small stones and hid in a corner.

Sensing or smelling the water, the small creature flew into the kitchen, alighting onto the bowl. In the process it knocked over some of the stones, scattered the shells. Samus waited until it had lapped up a few drops, tasted victory, before she smashed a rock into its head with a well-aimed throw. "Die, dragon!"

Stunned, the salamander rose drunkenly into the air, looping back and forth, buzzing like an angry wasp. She aimed another stone and hit it on the back, snapping one of its wings. It fluttered to the ground, desperately scuttling away toward shelter.

Samus snatched up one of the fallen stones by the bowl and blocked the salamander's exit to the outside. It scurried past her into the sleeping area and she pursued it, throwing stones as she ran. After three more stones the salamander rolled over on its back, broken legs twitching.

Snatching up one of the "buildings", a thick shaft of metamorphic rock, Samus raised it over the struggling creature and slammed it down hard. Again and again she struck, until she had ground its bones to meal and left little more than a nasty splotch on the stone floor.

Panting, she stood and carefully washed the rock, making sure she did not touch any of the grimy mass that had once been the salamander. She dumped the water down the sink, put away the shells and stones, and finally burned the flattened corpse as she had been instructed to do.

Samus dutifully swept the ashes out of the house, and after taking a quick bath, changed into her sleeping clothes. She padded over the floor in her bare feet, the stone pockmarked with burn marks from other salamanders that had met the same fate.

She climbed into the bed, and drew the blankets tight around her with a smile. She sensed that there would be no nightmares this night.


	4. Chapter 4

Samus awoke the next morning feeling refreshed. She quickly ran through her morning routine, though lingered slightly longer over breakfast than she needed to. For some reason food always tasted better when in a good mood.

Everything seemed better, really. Samus trotted quickly to Minah's place and knocked at the door. But when Minah opened it, she said with a smile, "Well, I don't think there's any more need for you to come in the mornings for examinations. I'm pretty sure the Long Sleep hasn't had any adverse effects on you."

Samus grinned, then frowned. "Does that mean I can't come here anymore?"

Minah laughed. "Of course you can! Have you eaten yet, dear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, why don't you come in for a bit of tea? I've got snowleaf tea, just picked it this morning."

Samus stepped inside and hopped up onto one of the ancient chairs next to the worn table. "Minah, why is everything here so old?" she asked.

"We're all old," Minah replied. "We've all been here a very long time. Besides, if we make something, we make it to last." She placed a small earthenware cup in front of Samus and filled it with water, straining it through sweetly sharp-smelling leaves that crinkled from bright green to transparent white as the hot water hit them. She filled a cup for herself, and sat down at the other side of the table.

Picking at a tiny crack in her cup, Samus asked, "Minah, why aren't there any more Chozo?"

Minah sighed. "I'm sure there are more Chozo in some of the other galaxies. But we don't adapt well here. We just like to be left alone, but in recent years we've gotten caught in between the battles between the Federation and the Space Pirates."

Taking a sip of her tea, Samus said, "Bamy has a fighting-suit. If you have something like that, why can't you just kill all the Space Pirates?"

"You can't do as much when you get old," Minah told her. "Oh, we got involved early on…but…we're not really a fighter race, you know."

Samus drained the last of her tea. "I'm gonna go see Old Bird now, I wanna train some more." She paused, trying to remember what she was supposed to say. "Thank you for the tea."

"You're welcome. But I think Old Bird has reading and writing scheduled for you today."

"Awww…" Samus laid her head on the table. "I hate them both."

"Sorry, Samus. It's important for you to know the human language, and you may need to know how to read Chozo script later on."

"Why?"

"Never mind why. Go see Old Bird, he's probably waiting for you."

* * *

"No, Samus, you've written that character backwards. Try it again."

Samus scowled as she took brush in hand again and attempted to make the "zo" character on the paper once more. On the other side of the table lay a cracked, ancient hand-computer, taken from what was left of the colony on K-2L. Samus preferred the human letters on the hand-computer; she could just press a button and the letter would appear perfect every time. Making Chozo characters required much more practice. After a few more attempts, she managed a wobbly "zo" good enough for Old Bird to instruct her how to make the next character.

The frayed brush didn't help. It had been repaired over the years with packrabbit fur for bristles, but there were no other brushes. The Chozo preferred to use stone as a medium, not paper.

"Old Bird, why do you carve the characters into rocks?" Samus asked. "You can't bring a rock with you, not very easily anyway. I can take the hand-computer with me wherever I go."

"Sometimes it's important for the words to stay where they are," he said as he attempted to steady her hand with his own.

"What on earth for?"

"Well, to leave knowledge for those who come after, for starters."

"You could do that with a hand-computer."

"Hand-computers break much easier than stone, Samus. We're lucky that one still works. Stone writing can last for eons."

Samus scratched the side of her face, getting a little blackplant ink on her cheek. "What would you say that you'd want to last for eons?"

"You should always look with an eye to the future, Samus. You never know what may happen."

She sighed with relief several minutes later, when Old Bird finally gave her the hand-computer. He instructed her to read, some ancient human fairy tale that made no sense. It was one of the few things that had been saved on the computer, along with a technical manual and the former owner's journal. "'What are they doing?' Alice whispered to the Gryphon. 'They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'

'They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in reply, 'for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.'

'Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice.'" Here Samus stopped. "It is stupid, Old Bird. This story doesn't make any sense. Why do the animals talk? And why does the girl keep asking them questions? She must know by now she's not going to get a real answer."

Old Bird laughed. "Some humans like this kind of nonsense tale. The less it has to do with reality, the better."

"That doesn't make sense either, Old Bird."

He shrugged. "Humans have many ways of deal with life, Samus. Some fight; some run; and some create new realities if they find the old ones lacking."

"But it's not real…it's just something in a story."

"Some prefer to live in imaginary things, rather than face the real world."

"Oh. That's stupid," Samus grumbled.

"No, it's just another way of adapting." Old Bird took the hand-computer. "You, Samus, are and always will be a warrior. You have Chozo blood in you. You must always face your troubles head-on. But not everyone has the will, or the spirit, to do so." He showed her the cracked screen. "The humans living on Earth, when this story was written, had nothing but each other to worry about. In times like these, the warrior's way is best. Like the human's mythical phoenix, you will rise from the ashes…"

"…and bring the Space Pirates down." She took back the hand-computer, stared at it thoughtfully for a little while, then glanced back up at Old Bird. "Does that mean we can move on to battle training now?"

* * *

Samus rubbed her arm as she walked through the Chozo settlement. Even just a couple days without hard physical training had put her out of practice, and her muscles ached. Massaging a kink in her neck, she noticed as she reached the far side of the settlement that Bamy's lab door was open.

Smiling wide, she ran inside. "Bamy?" she called out. No answer. Technically, she was not allowed in the lab without an adult, but if the door was open then Bamy had to be somewhere inside. She meandered around the halls, jiggling the handles on locked doors, peering at specimens locked securely in cages. "Bamy? Did you forget to close the door, Bamy?"

She stopped suddenly as a leaper, a furry animal that walked on birdlike legs and had a bat's wings, trotted down the hallway. It stared at her with beady little eyes and a serpent's tongue snaked around its needle-sharp teeth in its lizard-like face. "How did you get out?" Samus demanded of it. The little creature skittered over the floor away from her.

She turned in the opposite direction from where the leaper had fled, and listened to more chirps and calls coming from one of the specimen rooms. Leapers, once they had lost their baby teeth and their venom-tipped ones had grown in, were very dangerous and Samus had been warned to keep clear of them. But Samus did not think of leaving; rather, she decided she should shut whatever door this one had escaped from, in case more attempted to do the same thing. She hurried to the specimen room at the far end of the hall.

There, she saw a dozen leapers fluttering about, pecking at the other cages and methodically knocking lab equipment onto the floor. On the floor in front of the cages lay a prone, still figure of a Chozo.

"_Bamy!_" The leapers scattered as she shrieked and ran toward the figure on the floor. She grasped a fistful of clothing and shook him, hard. "Bamy, Bamy! Wake up! The leapers are out! Wake up, Bamy!"

He did not move; his eyes stayed closed. Down one side of his face she could see little pinpoints of clotted blood, covering the tiny holes where the leapers had bitten him. The musty, urine-like scent of leaper venom hung in the air. "_Bamy!_"

Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her arm, and turned to see one of the leapers standing there, staring at her with its tiny black eye. She stared down at a ring of tiny holes in her sleeve, then back up at the creature.

Bamy was dead. The leapers had killed him. Now they wanted to kill her, too.

A tiny ember within her heart, cooled for years in the safe confines of the Chozo's home, suddenly roared to life with a blazing flame. She snatched up a shattered glass beaker with her other arm, even as the bitten one began to throb with sharp pains. Brandishing the sharp glass, she shouted in a high-pitched voice, "You killed Bamy! _I'll kill you all!" _

She swiped at the nearest leaper with her glass shard. It caught the animal across the face, drawing blood and eliciting angry shrieks from the rest of the flock. She swiped and thrust at them, again and again, the surprised creatures flapping out of her way.

Suddenly she felt a shock and a heavy weight as one of the leapers jumped on her back, biting her shoulder. She grasped it around its skinny neck and pulled it off, twisting her hands until she could feel its vertebrae snap beneath her fingers and the creature went limp. She swung the dead animal in her other hand, dropping it when her fingers went numb. She pulled and punched, hit and bit, as the rest of the flock mobbed her, biting and scratching with sharp, piercing claws.

Samus grabbed the leg of one and snapped it, throwing herself down on the leaper and crushing its lungs. Her shrieks of rage blended with the angry cries of the animals as they piled upon her, ripping at her clothes and skin. She felt herself falling, the pain and the noise dimming, until finally she blacked out.

* * *

There was light, and sound. Soft light, soft sound. Comfortable, yet confined. Was she still in the Long Sleep? Or was this just another dream?

"She's waking up," Samus heard a voice say. Minah's voice.

Something touched her forehead. A hand, not human, a Chozo hand. "Samus, can you hear me?"

"Old Bird?" Her eyes fluttered open, but she found it hard to focus. "What happened?"

"Samus, you went into the lab by yourself." Old Bird's tone was scolding, yet relieved. "Whatever would possess you to do such a thing?"

"The lab? I…the door was open, and I thought Bamy…" Suddenly she remembered. "Bamy!" she cried, bolting up in bed. She immediately yelped in pain and laid back down. "Owww…Old Bird, Bamy was in the lab, and…"

"Samus, stay still," Minah told her. "You've been very badly injured. You're lucky to be alive."

"But what about Bamy? Did you save him too?"

Old Bird touched her hand softly, his face grave. "I'm sorry, Samus. He was too far gone."

"No!" Samus burst into tears of pain and rage. The feeling of tears on her face was alien, yet strangely soothing. She had not cried in a very long time. Her shuddering sobs rocked through her body and aggravated her injuries, but she could not stop.

"I'm so sorry, Samus," Minah said softly. "It was an accident…Bamy is usually so careful with the specimens, but he made a mistake…"

"I want Bamy!" It was a foolish thing for her to say, but she didn't care. She knew she would never see him again. Yet she could not help but say it, any more than she could stop crying.

The other two waited patiently, tenderly, until her sobs died down to sniffles. "Samus, I want to show you something," Old Bird said to her. He gently raised one of her arms, and showed her a long, thin scar there. "Samus, Bamy may have died, but he will never completely leave you. Do you remember the armor he was wearing?"

Samus nodded, her eyes uncertain.

"Bamy was our last warrior, the last in a long line of Chozo fighters. In his final years he chose to use his skills to research the often dangerous creatures of this galaxy. Our Chozo warriors had pieces of our technology embedded in their bodies at a young age; they could at will summon the fighter's armor as well as weapons and a number of other skills in the Chozo's fighting arts." He touched the scar with reverance. "We took this material from Bamy's body and implanted it in you, in several places. Now a pieces of him reside inside you, and always will. Remember this, Samus…you are Bamy's heir. The galaxy needs fighters like him, fighters like you…who are determined to keep its inhabitants safe from those who would harm them."

Samus ran her hand down her arm. It still hurt, yet somehow she no longer found it so hard to bear the pain.


	5. Chapter 5

_Eight Years Later… _

White powder floated along the air like snowflakes, rising and falling among the translucent flowers that carpeted the hillside. The edges of the flowers crinkled light brown in the moonlight, nearing the end of their brief performance. In the middle of the Sleeping Nightshade a prone figure lay, not fallen by the pollen but there by choice.

Samus lay on her back, watching the deadly powder float through the air, shielded by her armored suit. A single grain of pollen, should it enter her lungs, would have paralyzed and asphyxiated her. But Chozo armor could withstand volcanic magma and the vacuum of space, much less air that needed a little filtering. She lay with her head resting on her right arm, the lower half obscured by a cannon-like weapon. It twitched slightly when she heard the before-dawn calls of the leapers, but she had long since lost any fear of the creatures that had killed her benefactor.

As the Greater Sun rose, so did Samus. She shouldered the bag of Night-Blooming Radish she had gathered, the tasty dish now out of reach of the rest of the Chozo. The past two years had been marred by famine, and she'd overheard Old Bird saying that the planet was dying along with those who had tended to it. She tried not to dwell on this.

Samus made her way slowly back to the Chozo settlement, giving a huge bearlike creature a wide berth. Her warrior training had taught her how to strike it down with one shot; her Chozo guardians had trained her not to fire unless necessary.

Just outside the gate, she pressed a button on the arm cannon; a wave of energy washed over her, vaporizing the pollen and any other unwanted elements that might have clung to her suit. Once clean, she stepped inside and made her way toward Minah's home. She pulled off the helmet but left the rest of the armor. For some reason she felt naked without it.

Minah let out a small cry of delight when she saw the radishes. "Oh, these will last us through the rest of the week at least! Were they hard to find?"

It had taken Samus all night to fill the bag, but she shook her head no.

"That's good to hear. Thank you, Samus. Now, Old Bird stopped by looking for you, so you'd better go find him. He said to meet him at Ligon's place."

Samus nodded and bid Minah good-bye. She knocked at Ligon's door and Old Bird opened it. "Good heavens, Samus, where were you? You were out of bed all night."

"Got radishes for Minah." She offered no further excuses or information. "Did you want something?"

He nodded vigorously. "Come in, come in. We have a surprise for you."

As the village's mechanic, Ligon had a workshop connected to his home. Most of the workshop looked like a computer graveyard, with wires and metal chassis scattered over the floor and piled in corners. It was Ligon who had flown the ship that brought curious Chozo to K2-L, and Ligon who had fixed the hand-computer Samus used in her studies.

The ship, nebulous in Samus's memory, stood in the middle of the workshop with Ligon at the back, adjusting the exhaust pipes. As soon as he heard the ring of her armor on the floor he raised his head with a smile. "Ah, Samus! Take a good look; it's my gift to you. It'll be finished in a few days, and I'll teach you how to fly it."

"Fly it?" She eyed it with ambivalence, both interested and a little afraid of the reasoning behind this gift.

"Yes, indeed." Ligon rapped on the armored surface with his knuckles. "The last of some of the best Chozo flight technology ever made. Thing practically flies itself…though I wouldn't attempt to let it," he added with a chuckle.

"It'll take you to Federation Headquarters much quicker than one of their ships." Old Bird held up the broken hand-computer. "You've been accepted into the Academy. You start next year."

"Next year? " Samus said nothing for a long while. "I understand." She turned and left the workshop.

Ligon turned to Old Bird. "Is she all right? I thought she would be excited."

Old Bird sighed. "She's been so quiet since Bamy died. I've tried speaking with her…I think she wants to, but can't find the words. I wish I knew how to help her more. So many things left unsaid…"

* * *

She couldn't be angry at Old Bird.

Samus knew he was doing what he had to do, what all the Chozo had to do; concentrate their efforts into their last great hope, before departing this world. Feeling like a child about to be thrown from a burning building, she wondered how far she would fall and if anyone would catch her.

And if anything would remain of the second place she had dared to call home.

Flowers still bloomed, creatures still called to each other, the Suns still rose and set; yet Samus herself could feel Zebes beginning to decay. It felt as if something had gone rotten on the inside, and the rot was slowly seeping up to the surface. The place that had become her grounding shelter, her rock in a storm, was now falling apart. And there was nothing she or the Chozo could do about it.

The waning life of her home made her even more curious about what lay in its unexplored corners. For years she had roamed the surface in her suit, both under Old Bird's direction and as a result of her own unanswered questions. There were still secrets to be discovered, things that the village had forgotten and that the planet would devour over time, hiding those secrets forever.

Walking quickly, Samus easily covered several miles of ground, finally coming to an outcrop of rock that punched up from the surface as if thrust there by some volcano eons ago. Some months back, she had blasted a hole in the rock with one of her bombs. She had not expected to see anything more than a dent, but to her surprise, that blast opened up the mouth of a cave. It was barely big enough for her to squeeze through in ball form, but the movement of air in the small area she had entered told her that it must reach far into the rock.

The Morph Ball came easily to her now, but when Old Bird had first trained her, it had been a stark reminder of the fact that she was not completely human. She did not know just what it was that the Long Sleep had done to her body, but she knew that any other human being would have been crushed to a pulp.

At the mouth of the cave, she rolled into a ball and entered the opening, going further and further into the absolute blackness until she sensed she could stand upright. Her human eyes could not see in the dark, but the suit's visor displayed the rocky walls in front of her. She had popped out of a small channel, and now stood on top of a cracked tile floor.

Obviously, some sentient being had to have been there before her to put them there. Samus had learned about Chozo temples built by the first to colonize this planet, so long ago that the villagers had no idea where or even if they existed. She felt a thrill of anticipation as she began following the tile down into the depths of the cavern.

Her entire body tingled as she came to a pair of statues, worn and cracked but still identifiable as Chozo. She peered at the writing over the entrance between the statues, but the carving was too worn to be legible. A pair of the little spiky creatures that inhabited caves - Old Bird had called them "zoomers" - walked in lazy circles around the lettering.

Samus walked in further, her eyes lingering on the columns carved out of the virgin rock. Spouts that opened into carved birds' beaks hung on some of the walls; Samus deduced that water had at one time flowed out of them and into channels on the floor. Here and there she could see overgrown, subterranean organisms that looked like plants but were actually animals, not native to Zebes and adapted to life without light. Each had been placed there by the former inhabitants to serve as decoration.

Some of the columns had collapsed, giant wedges of stone resting far below their original home in the ceiling. Given the infrequent earthquake activity on Zebes, Samus deduced that the expanding honeycomb of passages had been here for ages.

Time held no meaning in these dark caverns, and Samus quickly lost track. She walked deeper and deeper into the Chozo ruins, taking note of the precious stones embedded in the walls. The stones themselves held little value to her; she lingered longer on the designs they created. In one particularly large room, Samus recognized the summer night sky winking down at her from the ceiling, stars made of diamond.

Samus noticed that some larger stones were missing from a far wall. As she examined it closer, she noticed marks consistent with a prying tool. A flash of anger ran through her, multiplied when she realized that the marks were fresh.

What sentient being, human or otherwise, knew about these caverns other than herself and the Chozo? Surely the Chozo would not plunder their own shrines. Strangely enough, after looking at the pattern around the gaps, she realized that one of each type of stone had been taken. Had the place been visited by some interstellar explorer, taking back tokens for study or sale?

A sharp, grating sound, halfway between a growl and a screech, jolted Samus out of her thoughts. She remembered that sound. She could never forget it. It had long been etched into her memory. Her breath quickened and she charged her cannon.

The sound echoed through the hall again, no louder or softer than before. Samus slowly backed out of the room, her weapon pointing toward the source of the noise. Not yet tested against this enemy, she felt it unwise to do so here, so far away from her trainers and benefactors.

Suddenly something dropped down from the ceiling right in front of her face, and with a shout Samus unleashed her blast charge. Her assailant shrieked in agony but swiped at her, blunting its claws on her armor. She unloaded charge after charge until its corpse lay at her feet, then turned and ran as the cries and growls of others followed her.

Space Pirates! What were they doing in a Chozo shrine? What were they doing on Zebes at all? Samus sprinted through the halls, stumbling as a laser blast to her shoulder threw her off balance. She whirled round and delivered a few return shots, but only a few found their mark. A least seven Space Pirates ran just behind her, their cries ringing in her ears.

In a moment of panic, Samus realized she had chosen the wrong hallway. She turned around to face her pursuers, weapon arm raised. She took a shot to the leg but waited until all seven were in the room, then ducked into her Morph Ball and raced past them, rolling in between their clawed feet. They yelped in surprise and confusion for a few precious moments, then resumed their chase as she stood and darted down the correct hall.

This small but successful maneuver to outwit them gave her a little courage, and as she sprinted through the hallways she shifted her mind ahead of just survival. They must not follow her to the Chozo village. Despite the distance from the caves, she knew Space Pirates were excellent trackers. All of them had to die. But how could she stand still long enough to aim a proper shot?

Samus's eye fell upon the jagged slabs of fallen rock. She shifted direction slightly, running toward it, charging her cannon but keeping it carefully downward. At the last moment she raised her arm above her head and fired. She heard the crack of splintering rock, felt a stone the size of a fist strike her armored head, and then a cloud of dust enveloped her as the ceiling fell upon the back three of the Pirates.

She could barely see, and from the sound of it, the Pirates had been blinded as well. Samus rolled into ball form again and struck the walls at right angles, moving forward in a jagged line instead of groping her way through the passage.

Smacking into a bend in the wall, Samus stood and leaped onto slabs of stone that at one time had probably held statuary, but was now just a niche in the rock. It served her purpose well enough. Now that she had the high ground, she fired shot after shot into the cloudy debris, the yelps of the Pirates driving her on.

Suddenly a laser blast burst out of the dust cloud and hit her helmet with a force that knocked her off her feet. She fell to the ground and immediately felt a heavy weight press against her chest. One of them stood with one foot on her armor, its laser weapon shoved right in her face. More out of instinct than anything she batted the weapon aside with one hand and it fired into the rock next to her head. This left the creature slightly off balance and she rolled over, throwing it off her chest. Two others attempted to hold her down but she curled into ball form again and sped off.

She rolled through the remainder of the halls until she reached the small opening where she had entered the caves. Here she stood and planted herself firmly in the middle of the passage, charging her cannon. When the first one rounded the bend, she gave it the full force of the blast. It fell backward and the other two tore at it in their eagerness to get at her. She fired again and again, feeling them strike back with every blast.

Finally, it was over. Three corpses lay at her feet. She leaned hard against one wall, dimly registering the fact that she had a slight concussion. A series of alarms rang in her ears, warning of damager to her suit. Quickly she rolled through the small passage to the outside, nearly falling over when she stood once more.

Were there more of those things? Samus knew she could not stay here. On unsteady legs she limped back toward the settlement, dreading the long walk ahead. Her head swam and she felt herself falling more than once. She had no idea how far she had gone when she finally collapsed on the ground, unconscious.


End file.
